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My first conlang (sketch)

From:Robert Hailman <robert@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 16, 2000, 2:02
Alright, a while back I posted an introduction, but I haven't had much
time to post or work on my still-unnamed conlang, which I am presenting
here. I'm new to all this, but I have been reading things that have been
posted.

Phonology and Orthography:

Consonants:

Phoneme:        p b t d k g m n N  f v T  D   s z S  Z  x  G  r\ j l
Transliteraton: p b t d k g m n n* f v th th* s z sh zh kh gh r  j l

* - "th" is pronouced /D/ when intrevocalic, "n" is pronounced /N/ when
preceeding or following a velar consonant. Also /r\/ is the SAMPA for a
Alveolar approximant, in case
another system is being used here.

Vowels:

Phoneme:         a e i o u
Transliteration: a e i o u

No surpises here.

Syllabary:

(C)(r,l,j)(V)(C)

Note that r, l, and j can only follow an alveolar, dental, or
postalveolar consonant:
eg. "thr" is valid, while "pr" is not.

Grammar:

As-of-yet-unnamed conlang (hearafter AOYUC) is an agglutinating
language, with a verb-second structure. SVO, or SAOV when using an
auxilliary, is the preferred order, although any is acceptable, and
neccesary when putting a prepositional phrase before the verb.

Cases:
AOYUC has 7 cases: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Vocative,
Ablative, Instrumental.

Gender:
AOYUC (maybe some corruption of that should be the name - perhaps
"Ajuk"?) has 4 genders:
inanimate, male, female, and neuter/unknown.

Nouns:
Nouns have gender, and number, and are inflected by case as well. Here
are the noun suffixes (and they all are suffixes), in order of
appearance:

        Number:
        singular: (none)
        plural: -as-

        Case:
        Nominative: (none)
        Accusative: -o
        Dative: -aj
        Genitive: -i
        Vocative: -u
        Ablative: -om
        Instrumental: -a

Personal pronouns:
Pronouns are treated similarly to nouns. There are three monosyllabic
root pronouns, one for each person. From these, certain affixes are
added, as follows:

        Gender:
        Inanimate: -ot-
        Male: -ap-
        Female: -ip-
        Neuter: -ep-

        Number:
        Singular: (none)
        Plural: -as-
        All in view (is there a better name for this?): -an-

        Politeness:
        Polite form: I haven't decided yet, perhaps -uman-
        Informal: (none)

        Case:
        Same as nouns.

I haven't figured out how I'm going to do the other pronouns yet, that's
next.

Verbs:
All verbs have a root form, which remains unmodified and affixes are
added to it. If an auxilliary is used, the main verb, in its root form,
goes to the end of the sentance, and any particles and affixes are added
to the auxiliarry. Verbs have affixes for gender of subject, number of
subject, past, present, and future tense, imperfect vs. perfect,
indicative vs. imperative (the negative is done with a particle),
object: transative/intransative (same form) vs. reflexive, and finally,
the person of the subject (1st, 2nd, or 3rd). Auxilliaries are used to
put the verb into the passive voice, and affixes are added to that, and
possibly some other auxiliaries will exist. The "na" particle is put
before the verb to make it negative.

        Gender :
        Inanimate: -ot-
        Male: -ap-
        Female: -ip-
        Neuter: -ep-

        Number:
        Singular: (none)
        Plural: -as-

        Tense:
        Past: -am-
        Present: (none)
        Future: -oth-

        Completion:
        Perfect: (none)
        Imperfect: -ud-

        Mood:
        Indicative: (none)
        Imperative: -ok-

        Object:
        Transative/Intransative: (none)
        Reflexive: -esh-

        Person:
        1st: -a
        2nd: -e
        3rd: -i

Others:
I have yet to work on articles, adjectives, adverbs, relative clauses,
or prepositions, but I'll keep you covered as I go along. Also, when a
subjective pronoun would be used, the subjective pronoun can be ommited
for compactness or for poetic usages, often leaving a just a verb or a
verb and a noun. This is considered more of a journalistic or poetic
device, and should rarely be used in common or formal speech for
reasons, unless sucinctness is absolutely nessecary. I will leave you
with a few examples:

"shukaj" - to search, from the Polish imperative if I understand
correctly.
"zorkir" - camera

shukajapasamudesha
[search.male.plural.past.imperfect.indicative.reflexive.1st person]
"We used to search for ourselves"

zorkirasaj shukajapasamuda
[camera.plural.dative]
[search.male.plural.past.imperfect.indicative.transative.1st person]
"We used to search for cameras"

In both of these I omit the subjective pronoun, but that's just because
I haven't come up with the pronouns yet (hanging head in shame)

Well, that's all (and I do mean all) for now, I await your replys.

Robert